In this seasonal immersion with Isla Macleod, we arrive at the luminous threshold of Summer Solstice, a time of abundance, celebration and ripening. Together, we explore Litha as a living invitation into collaboration, creativity and deeper intimacy with the web of relationships that sustain us.

These special seasonal episodes move between reflection, story, myth and gentle ritual invitation.

At the heart of this episode is a remembering that creation is through collaboration. As Isla shares, “Summer teaches me that creativity is a living current that I can choose to attune to.” Nature reveals that abundance is born through relationship, through the exchange of gifts, ideas, energy and care.

Summer becomes an invitation to soften our edges and allow ourselves to be surprised by Life. To become receptive to beauty, wonder and serendipity. To trust the mysterious intelligence moving through all living things and discover our place within the great dance of co-creation.

“To collaborate with life requires a willingness to be surprised and say yes to invitations that were not part of the plan.”

This is, as with our core intention at Rooted Healing, an invitation into intimacy with Life itself. Into what Isla describes so beautifully as participating wholeheartedly in the dance of Creation.

“May you taste the sweetness of this season and recognise the countless relationships that sustain your life.”

With special thanks to the music in this episode from Mango Lassie, Telling the Bees, The Children’s Forest, Dorrie Joy and Cynefin.

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D. Firth Griffith is a writer, teacher and land-based practitioner whose work sits at the intersection of ecology, myth and lived relationship with the natural world.

He is a father, horse handler, sacred butcher and leather tanner, as well as an award-winning independent author of books on kincentric ecology, mythology, fantasy, horror and language. His writing has appeared in publications including The Stockman Grassfarmer, Resilience.org and the Permaculture Research Institute. His books have received several honours, including Independent Publisher Book of the Year in Fantasy and the National Indie Excellence Award in Nature Writing.

Across his books and countless conversations, Daniel has challenged many of the assumptions that underpin modern agriculture, food systems and even contemporary environmentalism. His work asks difficult questions: What does it mean to eat with honour? What has been lost when food becomes commodity rather than a relational, animistic consent-based approach?

This conversation felt particularly alive for me because last year we field harvested one of our own cows within our community’s farm. The experience stirred reverence, grief, gratitude, responsibility and many questions that continue to unfold within me.

Daniel's work offers a language for some of those questions, while also opening many more.

What follows is a conversation about food, consent, ceremony, kinship, grief, horror, foraging, hope and what it might mean to become fully answerable to the places and beings that feed us.

Firth has generously offered a fortnight of a 75% discount code for any and all of his books, which is for the patrons of this podcast and also for our paid subscribers on Substack. Daniel’s Award-winning Irish Myth “Rimwalker” series now has three books, all available on his website. And if you want to learn more about kincentric rewilding, he also has that book available (I recommend it).

The music in this episode is from Ojhro and Cynefin.

Explore Firth’s books.

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Become a patron.

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In this seasonal immersion with Isla Macleod, we step into what it means to meet this fertile, abundant, eros-filled threshold where the land has fully awakened, and something in us stirs awake alongside it. Together, we explore Beltane as a living field of relationship, one that invites us into deeper intimacy with our bodies, our creativity and the more-than-human world.

These special seasonal episodes move between reflection, story and gentle ritual invitation.

At the heart of this episode is a remembering that “we are collaborators and co-creators of life unfolding.”

Beltane becomes an invitation to turn towards what enlivens us; to follow the subtle currents of desire, sensation and beauty. To slow down enough to feel the world again, listening to the body as a site of knowing and allowing the inner artist to emerge.

As Isla shares, “When we witness beauty, our natural response is to create beauty in return.”

There is also something playful and tender in this… stories of dancing with the stag beneath the moon, of gathering blossoms and making ritual with what is already at hand, of allowing life itself to be the ceremony, with a gentle loosening of the idea that ritual needs to be elaborate. What matters is attention, presence and willingness to be in relationship.

This is, as with our core intention at Rooted Healing, an invitation into intimacy with Life. Into what Isla names so beautifully as “making love with creation.”

You might listen while walking, while sitting with a tree, or simply letting the words move through you. However it meets you, may it soften the edges of separation and remind you of your place within this living, breathing world.

With special thanks to the music in this episode, from Mango Lassie, Telling the Bees, The Children’s Forest, Mae Bird and Cynefin.

Learn more about our courses and gatherings at rootedhealing.org

Support us on Patreon